eBay continues to make changes – no more digital products!
eBay continues to make changes, and this time in Australia we get one too.
eBay.com recently announced that digital goods would be available to list only in a Classified Ad format and now eBay.com.au hasbanned them altogether. Apparently eBay.com.au will see if they can be supported in a Classified Ads format in future but for now its goodbye digital goods.
This will be unpleasant for legitimate digital product sellers who rely on eBay for marketing but I guess eBay feels that the marketplace will benefit from these tighter controls. eBay has to make some decisions that are going to upset people in order to maintain a standard and retain sellers and buyers, so I can see their reasoning.
The official line is this : “Digitally delivered goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for feedback manipulation (both real and perceived). To preserve the integrity of the Feedback System, effective 8 April 2008 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically will be banned on eBay.com.au.”
Link, for the full news item.
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Comments
Emma,
It is certainly an interesting development. I have to admit, in my own experience the only digital sellers that I have looked at in any sort of detail seem to have a lot of genuine feedback (even if I thought the product looked like it would have little value).
Professional internet markets selling digital products simply have to provide a quality product to have a lasting business and to build a large email database.
I do feel for sellers with legitimate products, but hopefully they can still receive decent exposure and sales using the Classified format down the track.
As far as your 2 questions,
1. Why was there no communication/warning first?
Good question, I am sure it came as a shock to sellers. If I was running a business like theirs, having the rug pulled out from underneath like that could be a scary prospect, especially if it was a primary source of income..
2. What could be the next category to go?
Difficult question to answer. The common ‘problem’ items seem to be ‘genuine’ luxury brands (too make fakes), but surely removing categories that have too many consumer complaints would be starting down a difficult path for eBay?
Where do you draw the line?
And if you don’t ban products and categories, how do you better qualify sellers of these products? Surely seller qualification procedures for troublesome products/categories could be implemented to reduce chances of consumer scams and fraud?
This topic has created a lot of buzz in the eBay seller circles.
Two questions are really standing out from my conversations:
1. Why was there no communication/warning first?
2. What could be the next category to go?
I am also thinking of those sellers that are trying to earn a living legitimately selling digital products – I hope the classified format is still an option for them.
I do appreciate that the best way to retain customers on eBay right now is to focus on trust and safety.
Stephanie Tilenius (VP&GM eBay North America) mentioned at a conference this week that eBay were also seeing other fraudulent activities associated with sales of digital products.
I am interested to hear more from Brian Burke (Director Global Feedback Policy) as this topic develops.